Happy Pride!
ATU Local 583 is proud to fight for the rights of ALL Members no matter their race, gender or sexual orientation. We are wishing all Members who are in the LGBTQIA2S+ community a wonderful pride month!

Retro Pay and Withholdings

As we have discussed previously, the retroactive pay from settling the most recent contract is to be paid out June 11th, 2025.

At the April 2025 Executive Board a motion was brought forward to not collect ATU 583 Union dues on these monies. The motion was supported by the Board and brought to the Membership meetings in April 2025 where it was further supported by the Membership.

This means that ATU 583 will not be collecting dues on your retroactive pay. We do not have any control over other taxes etc. taken off your back pay but we do have the ability to bring forward motions as discussed above. This is a small way for us to say thank you to our Members. We know every extra dollar in your pocket counts.

ATU 583 Office – A Scent Free Environment

Over the last year we have made the move for our Offices being scent free. We have an administrator with severe scent allergies and this accommodation has helped immensely.

When Members are coming into the office – say for a pancake breakfast/open house (info below) – we ask that you please refrain from using scents. This normally means any perfume or colognes as well as heavily scented lotions or similar.

We thank you in advance for helping to make the 583 Office spaces as accessible as possible for everyone. Thank you!

Pancake Breakfast and New Building Open House

Mark your calendars for July 8th, 2025! We will be hosting our third annual Pancake Breakfast as well as our Open House!

We are now located at 208 57th Ave SW in Calgary. The Open House will have the entire building open to Members but the majority of the festivities will take place in Suite #103 which is our main floor.

The Pancake Breakfast runs from: 9 AM until 12 PM
The Open House runs from: 12 PM to 4 PM

We will also have door prizes and refreshments available!

Family Picnic 2025

This year our Family Picnic takes place on Sunday July 20th starting at 10 AM. We have reserved Bowness Park sites 6, 7 and 8.

We will have all of our usual fun including barbecued food, ice cream, refreshments, games (with prizes) and more!

We are looking forward to seeing you and your family there. Don’t forget the sunscreen!

ATU 583 Scholarship

We are working hard to get the Scholarship for the 2025/2026 school year out! Watch this space and our social media/website/Union posting boards for details soon!

ATU 583 Member Assault – May 14, 2025

By now most of you will be aware of the reprehensible assault on one of our Operators that occurred early in the morning hours of May 14th, 2025.

This Member was lured outside by a loud noise originally thought to be a mirror or other part of the bus being broken. The Member went to check and was ruthlessly attacked by two cowards. They stabbed him, they hit him with a metal pipe repeatedly and though specifics are limited, he did manage to get away. A Member of the public administered aide that the Operator credits with saving his life. Control was called and our Member rushed to the hospital in life threatening condition. Miraculously he was upgraded to “stable” but his wounds were still very serious.

We have been speaking on this topic almost non-stop since it occurred to keep it present and at the forefront of safety related talks, but we cannot stress enough how absolutely pointless, cruel and spineless this attack was. The assailants are criminals and we will be there to ensure the book is thrown at them. Absolutely NO ONE should fear going to work. Absolutely NO ONE should have their ability to get home safely taken from them. To be clear – we are disgusted this happened and we will be with our Member every step of the way through the courts.

We are grateful to have heard immediately from both Mr. Doug Morgan, General Manager of Calgary Transit and our Mayor, Jyoti Gondek. Both expressed sadness that this happened and a commitment to ensuring Transit is safer for our Members.

In the time since this attack has occurred, we have taken the following steps:

1. We have been in touch with our Member this whole time. While he recuperates, we are receiving updates. Most recently that he received the cards our Members signed in support of him and his healing journey.
2. Speaking of cards, we had special cards printed and dispersed in the workplace for Members to sign. We then ensured those made it safely to the Member.
3. We started a button project – creating buttons that say “Assault a Transit Operator, GO TO JAIL – Section 269.01 of the Criminal Code”. These buttons have been made available to all Members who wish to wear one.
4. We have been in court and have worked with the Crown Prosector each time the two assailants have tried to coordinate a bail hearing.
5. We spoke directly with Mayor Gondek on the issue of safety for our Members.
6. We were present when City Council voted unanimously to allocate spending for better shields for our Operators. As a result of that – $15 million was allocated. Thank you to Ward 5 Councillor, Raj Dhaliwal for this.
7. We have met with City Manager, David Duckworth and General Manager of CT, Doug Morgan on Operator safety. We are meeting again July 17th. We will be outlining all the other things that need to be in place to complement the new shields.

There is nothing more important than the safety and wellbeing of our Members. It is our number one priority to ensure that you are safe at work and that you make it home every night safely as well. As horrific as this assault was, we will not let the opportunity be wasted and will continue to make our workplace safer. Our next major visual activity will be to pack the court when these two criminals plead their sentence and make application for bail.

Please watch for a short notice in the workplace as soon as we confirm the date.

A Message from Our Member who was Assaulted

“Big thank you to our Union President, Mike Mahar. You and all my Transit fellow colleagues for your support, inspiration, your prayers and good wishes for my recoveries from the injuries I sustained from the assault on me! Thanks to all of you for the Get Well Soon Cards for me! All this mental support means a lot for me and my Family! God bless everyone! 🙏🙏❤️”

We are glad to hear our Member is on the road to recovery from this traumatic and completely senseless attack. We will be standing by with support throughout the recovery process.